Ant Gardens

The leaf-cutting ants of Central and
South America create their food supply by forming a mutually beneficial
association with certain fungi. They grow these fungi on gardens created from
piles of disks they have cut from living leaves. The ants cannot digest
cellulose, a complex molecule found in the cell walls of leaves, but the fungus
can. By using the cellulose as food for its own growth, the fungus converts the
cellulose into carbohydrates. The ants then eat the fungus.

The fungus benefits from a guaranteed food supply
and the elimination of competing fungi. Neither the ants nor the fungus is
found separately in nature. The ants house the beneficial fungus in their
nests, supply it with leaves, and remove any invading fungi.

Ant nest mounds extend up to three feet underground. They consist of many
chambers--2000 in an average sized colony. Each chamber is 8 to 12 inches
(200-300 mm) in diameter. Nest building raises a huge mound of soil. Ants
constructing an average-sized mound carry 88 tons (80,000 kg) of soil to the
surface.

Worker ants search for leaves, cut out disks, and carry them
back to the nest. At the nest, the leaf disks are passed to other workers. They
clean the disks and cut them into 1-2 mm (1/32 of an inch) pieces. Then they
crush these tiny pieces and mix them with their saliva. The paste-like material
that results is added to the garden.

The workers transplant bits of fungus tissue from older parts of the
garden to the new leaf paste. The new material becomes covered with a cottony
mass of fungal hyphae. The workers continuously walk over their gardens, eating
any invading foreign hyphae and adding secretions. The secretions contain
chemicals that help the ants eliminate unwanted species of fungi. If the ants
are removed, other fungi quickly colonize the garden.

The ant fungus produces hyphae (filaments) with swollen tips which are
harvested and fed to larval ants, or eaten by adults. The ants do not allow the
fungus to mature and sprout mushrooms in the nest. Mushrooms are produced,
however, in laboratory cultures of the fungus.

In time, a garden can no longer support the growth of the fungus. A new
garden is then built in a different chamber, or the old garden is recycled. The
oldest leaf material is carried to the surface and dumped several yards away.
The ants replace the old leaf paste with new material.

Leaf cutting ants are common in the tropics, where nests may be located
as close as four yards (meters) apart. In the United States, these ants can be
found in Texas, Louisiana, Florida, the Carolinas and even as far north as New
Jersey. They are a serious pest in the tropics, where they destroy all the
leaves on trees and crops. In Texas and southern Louisiana they have caused
massive damage to orange and other citrus trees.